Mesa man says he sold ammunition to Las Vegas mass shooter
A Mesa man said he sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock, a gunman who caused the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history when he killed 58 people and injured hundreds of others at a country music festival in Las Vegas.
Douglas Haig, 55, said he had met Paddock at gun shows and sold him tracer ammunition, which are bullets or cannon-caliber projectiles that burn brightly when they are fired and as a result help the shooter aim.
"I was horrified," he told The Arizona Republic, describing his emotions after learning of the Oct. 1 shooting near the Mandalay Bay.
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"I have some very strong feelings. In fact, it was enough to make me not want to do the business anymore," Haig said. "Because I couldn't tell that this guy had evil in him."
It's not clear if Paddock, who killed himself moments after the shooting, fired ammunition on Oct. 1 that Haig had sold him.
A 'person of interest' revealed
Authorities said Paddock had stockpiled ammunition and firearms in the year leading up to the shooting. Police found 23 guns when they raided his 32nd-floor room at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, from where he fired onto the crowd.
Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of the Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas said on Jan. 19, the FBI had been investigating an unidentified person. Haig's identity became known on Tuesday, but it's not clear if Haig was the person Lombardo had referenced.
Haig's name accidentally became public when a judge's court staff in Las Vegas forgot to redact his name in court documents that were released Tuesday. The Las Vegas Review-Journal was the only publication that received a copy of a document that had Haig's name unredacted.
“Until the investigation can rule otherwise, Marilou Danley and Douglas Haig have become persons of interest who may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit Murder with a Deadly Weapon,” reported the Review-Journal, citing the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department document prepared in October.
The Review-Journal and other publications had sued the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to unseal search warrants in the shooting investigation.
District Court Judge Elissa Cadish issued a gag order on Tuesday preventing publication of the original document that showed Haig's name, reported the Los Angeles Times.
"I ordered them redacted and thought they were redacted not only to protect the investigation but because of concerns about possible danger to this individual," Cadish said, according to the Times.
Danley was the gunman's girlfriend and been named a person of interest by authorities early in the investigation.
Neither she nor Haig is charged with a crime.
Haig: Selling to Paddock haunts me
Haig answered the door at his Mesa residence on a quiet street near Greenfield Road, filled with one-story stucco homes.
Haig, who said he runs his ammunition business as a hobby, was polite and somber as he spoke to The Republic from behind a security screen door at his Mesa home.
He said the fact that he sold ammunition to Paddock haunts him. He said when he met Paddock, the man seemed like a normal guy and like anybody else Haig had done business with at gun shows.
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"I refuse to sell to people that I don't trust or a get a bad vibe off of,'' Haig told The Republic.
He reiterated that selling tracer ammunition in the state of Arizona is legal.
"It really starts to get me upset when I heard what he did," he added. "I think about it every day. Every day."
Haig declined to comment further. He said that he had scheduled a news conference on Friday at his attorney's office and would have more to say then.
'I was jumping out of my skin at first'
According to a LinkedIn profile for a Mesa man with the same name, Haig is a senior engineer at aerospace giant Honeywell. The profile also says he runs a company called Specialized Military Ammunition.
The company's webpage says the business is closed indefinitely. A Facebook page for the company showed its location in Mesa.
"Check back to see if/when we are up and running again," the website says.
It says the company started in 1991 as a small business to support the U.S. Special Operations Command.
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Newsweekalso reported Tuesday the newsmagazine had interviewed Haig in October but didn't publish his comments then.
Haig told the magazine he was interviewed by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. At the time, he said he didn't sell to Paddock and didn't know who the man was, the magazine reported.
“I was jumping out of my skin at first. I was like, ‘Good Lord, what is going on?'" Haig told Newsweek.
An ATF spokesman on Tuesday night referred all questions to the FBI. A FBI spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Law enforcement officials have not yet found a motive for Paddock opening fire on the crowd.
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